I just read an interesting article, and while it's not terribly new, I think it makes some interesting points about the possibility of luring back 3rd party support to the Wii U by allowing outside studios to work 'within' Nintendo's franchises to create alternate titles or possibly even "canon" titles as they have in the past (Square did Super Mario RPG). The obvious example as of now is Hyrule Warriors, which is being developed by Tecmo, and while that may not be my ideal candidate I'm interested to see how it plays out.

The major problem with 3rd party devs is they just don't see the sales numbers to merit porting or making titles for the U, but if they were allowed to work within a Nintendo franchise world or toss in some Nintendo characters that might change. The article points to what they call "The Link Effect." Back in 2003, when Soul Caliber 2 was released, each system saw a different exclusive character - Xbox got Spawn, PS3 got Heihachi, and the Gamecube version had a playable Link. And amazingly enough, even though the Gamecube had the smallest install base, they managed to sell the most units on that system. That's pretty significant! A fighting game selling the most on a Nintendo system... Do Nintendo's characters really have that big of a pull? Apparently so.

Inserting Nintendo's characters & worlds into other studios' games & game play styles might yield interesting results by appealing to outside gamers while keeping the Nintendo faithful interested as well. I've never been interested in the Fight Night series, but if they tossed in say... King Hippo in the mix with a bunch of real boxers I might pay attention.

So, what do you guys think? Do you trust Nintendo's franchises in other studios' hands? What studios would you like to see helm some Nintendo projects? Or even, what cross-overs and cameos would you like to see?

Edit: I'm aware Nintendo already uses outside studios to make some of their own games. I guess I'm more interested in the appeal of an outside studio making games we wouldnt normally see come out on a Nintendo console, but including Nintendo elements to pander to the Nintendo crowd.

the problem here is they have been doing it for ages and never stopped. namco is working on wii sports club yet canceled the low risk downloadable title pac man arcade. tecmo is working on hyrule warriors yet skipped the wii u with the newest dynasty warriors, ninja gaiden, and dead or alive. sega who worked with nintendo on mario and sonic sochi and lost world dlc is skipping the u with the next aliens game.

My only fear in this approach is that the devs may not be able to make fine quality games as Nintendo does and granted, life is all about ups and downs but in this case, Nintendo rarely disappoints me and the more games they make by themselves, the better the result is.

Dark Moon is a good example to me atleast. If Nintendo made it, it would have been better than the original and I'm pretty sure about that.

I would honestly consider the Oracle games to be very much lesser Zelda titles

Minish Cap is better despite being too easy

Well, my point being that 3rd party devs have been working on popular and acclaimed Nintendo games all along. We shouldn't scratch all of those from the record just because of a single bad experience 20 years ago with a project Nintendo had zero control over.

So Anakin kneels before Monster Mash and pledges his loyalty to the graveyard smash.

Don't forget that Namco are working on Smash bros, and they put out 3rd Mario Kart gp into the arcades recently. And yet where's the returned favour on Nintendo's part, they're not working on any of Namco's games are they. The reason is that Nintendo aren't going to allow any work they do be published on other systems.
We could sit here all day discussing what games should have been brought over, yet we all know that it's never gonna happen.
For now, untill things change, were lucky that some 3rd's are atleast working with Nintendo, albeit on Nintendo franchises.
Lastly, something that does make me wonder with Nintendo's decisions, is why they won't allow 3rd party dev's to work on their franchises that haven't been used for ages. Everybody at some point or other have been begging for games like 1080, wave race, star fox, and F-Zero amonst others. Yet Nintendo are happy to let them die because they don't make the same money as Mario and Zelda

Switch I.D SW-0262-8074-7921
WiiU NNID: Dr_Dizzy
I`ve been a slave from the cradle to the grave.
https://supermariomakerbookmark.nintendo.net/courses/58D0-0000-02BB-5718

And amazingly enough, even though the Gamecube had the smallest install base, they managed to sell the most units on that system. That's pretty significant! A fighting game selling the most on a Nintendo system... Do Nintendo's characters really have that big of a pull?

Nope. Also, cube version outsold others in US (in Japan on the other hand, PS2 was best selling) and it wasn't that significant, because in the end, the difference between sales was "stunning" 50k copies if I remember correctly.

But I will ask simple question - did SC4 helped sales of Star Wars merch significantly? Oh wait, there is more on topic question
Did Tekken Tag 2 sell the most on WiiU?
Did it help Scribblenauts Unlimited?
Did those 2 games help your and this article theory?

I didn't see people rush for game & watch because of Smash or DKCR

The only thing that matters is the game, not "omg, Mike shoving bananaz in tetris! I must get that".
Of course, I could be wrong, but that's how I see it.

And amazingly enough, even though the Gamecube had the smallest install base, they managed to sell the most units on that system. That's pretty significant! A fighting game selling the most on a Nintendo system... Do Nintendo's characters really have that big of a pull?

Nope. Also, cube version outsold others in US (in Japan on the other hand, PS2 was best selling) and it wasn't that significant, because in the end, the difference between sales was "stunning" 50k copies if I remember correctly.

Perhaps the adjective "stunning" would be more applicable to the PS2 having roughly 7x the install base of the Gamecube then.

And almost all of the shortcomings of Other M can be attributed to Sakamoto's terribly story, not Team Ninja's gameplay.

So Anakin kneels before Monster Mash and pledges his loyalty to the graveyard smash.

The only crossover that would be a big money spinner is a Mario & Sonic massive open world platform/adventure that has over 100 hours of gameplay... I am 100% certain we will see this within the next 5 years